1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a head protecting airbag device provided with an air bag which develops and expands downward by expansion gas flowed in from the upper side of side windows inside a vehicle so that the head of a passenger can be protected.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, in a head protecting air bag device, an air bag has been housed in the upper side of side windows, being folded in a state where its plural attaching portions are fixed to fixing part of vehicle body, and mounted in the vehicle. This air bag develops and expands to cover the side window when the expansion gas flows in.
As a structure for attaching attaching portions of the air bag to the fixing part of the vehicle body, there has been a structure of using a clip without using a bolt which takes a time and labor for mounting. This clip permits snap fixing with one touch operation. The clips attached to predetermined attaching portions of the air bag of the head protecting air bag device are mounted on the vehicle (For example, JP-A-10-203289). This clip is provided with a pair of securing legs. The pair of securing legs, when they are inserted into a fixing slot formed at in the fixing part of the vehicle body via an attaching slot formed in the attaching portion, warp to approach each other, and then restore their original state so that they are secured to out-vehicle side peripheral edge on the of the fixing slot.
However, in the conventional head protecting air bag device, the clip is made of synthetic resin. When the air bag expands after having been mounted on the vehicle, abrupt downward tensile stress acts on the clip. At this time, the securing legs are scraped off by the peripheral edge of the fixing slot formed in the fixing part of the vehicle body, the fixing part generally being a part of an inner panel of steel. As a result, there is a fear that the clip comes off from the fixing slot. Further, the conventional clip also gives a fear of strength reduction due to heat deterioration. Thus, the conventional clip presented a problem to be solved about attaching an airbag to the vehicle body with assured stability.
Incidentally, in order to solve this problem, there is a proposal of using a metallic clip. However, if a material for the metallic clip is of a plate thickness that can be subject to bending, a part of the securing legs is likely to be bent when the air bag develops and expands like the clip of synthetic resin. If it is bent, a fear of the clip coming off from the fixing slot occurs. In this case, if the thickness is increased in order to prevent the bending, the load for inserting the clip into the fixing slot becomes too large. As a result, the metallic clip having a large thickness will deteriorate the workability of mounting the air bag on the vehicle.